Hey everyone.
I know I haven't done much updating of late. The kids had homework to do last night, and I've had a headache for the last 24 hours or so. It seems to have been fought back for a bit by a bottomless Mountain Dew at dinner tonight.
Linda is still making progress. No new skills really, just improvements on what she has. Her left leg kicking is getting stronger. She can extend the knee pretty much fully and has reasonable strength retracting it too. She can turn her left foot in several directions (wiggle your foot and you'll realize it has many degrees of freedom). She can kick her right leg some. It is about where her left was a few days ago.
She can hold her head up well and is getting better control there. She can shake her head pretty reliably for "no" now. Her "yes" is still ambiguous. She spends a good bit of time working on middle body "trunk" strength and control. And time in the standing frame, of course, to build strength and stretch her calves.
Her speech therapist is working on a new letter board that requires less yes/no decisions (remember, yes is ambiguous right now). It will be clear with letters you can see from the front and back. The case worker, it turns out, has worked with a patient like Linda some years back and has had some really good ideas for us. He used a board like this effectively. Linda's progress has been so good that she is hoped/expected to be speak before we're done, but she really should have a way to communicate in the meantime and this looks pretty promising.
I didn't actually see Linda this morning because of my headache. I arrived at about 2pm and she was crying, although not as heavily as sometimes. I was able to cheer her up by telling some funny stories and jokes. Pretty soon she was laughing and smiling. I'll share one of the jokes which came to me originally in a chain letter but has been one of my favorites of all time:
The mind of a 6-year old is wonderful. First grade...true story:
One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs to her class. She came to the part of the story where the first pig was trying to accumulate the building materials for his home.
She read: "And so the pig went up to the man with the wheelbarrow full of straw and said, 'Pardon me sir, but may I have some of that straw to build my house?'" The teacher paused then asked the class, "And what do you think that man said?"
One little boy raised his hand and said, "I think he said...'Holy crap! A talking pig!'"
The teacher was unable to teach for the next 10 minutes.
I know I haven't done much updating of late. The kids had homework to do last night, and I've had a headache for the last 24 hours or so. It seems to have been fought back for a bit by a bottomless Mountain Dew at dinner tonight.
Linda is still making progress. No new skills really, just improvements on what she has. Her left leg kicking is getting stronger. She can extend the knee pretty much fully and has reasonable strength retracting it too. She can turn her left foot in several directions (wiggle your foot and you'll realize it has many degrees of freedom). She can kick her right leg some. It is about where her left was a few days ago.
She can hold her head up well and is getting better control there. She can shake her head pretty reliably for "no" now. Her "yes" is still ambiguous. She spends a good bit of time working on middle body "trunk" strength and control. And time in the standing frame, of course, to build strength and stretch her calves.
Her speech therapist is working on a new letter board that requires less yes/no decisions (remember, yes is ambiguous right now). It will be clear with letters you can see from the front and back. The case worker, it turns out, has worked with a patient like Linda some years back and has had some really good ideas for us. He used a board like this effectively. Linda's progress has been so good that she is hoped/expected to be speak before we're done, but she really should have a way to communicate in the meantime and this looks pretty promising.
I didn't actually see Linda this morning because of my headache. I arrived at about 2pm and she was crying, although not as heavily as sometimes. I was able to cheer her up by telling some funny stories and jokes. Pretty soon she was laughing and smiling. I'll share one of the jokes which came to me originally in a chain letter but has been one of my favorites of all time:
The mind of a 6-year old is wonderful. First grade...true story:
One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs to her class. She came to the part of the story where the first pig was trying to accumulate the building materials for his home.
She read: "And so the pig went up to the man with the wheelbarrow full of straw and said, 'Pardon me sir, but may I have some of that straw to build my house?'" The teacher paused then asked the class, "And what do you think that man said?"
One little boy raised his hand and said, "I think he said...'Holy crap! A talking pig!'"
The teacher was unable to teach for the next 10 minutes.
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